Editing Distillation (section)

=== Classical antiquity ===

==== Greek and Roman terminology ====
According to British chemist T. Fairley, neither the Greeks nor the Romans had any term for the modern concept of distillation. Words like "distill" would have referred to something else, in most cases a part of some process unrelated to what now is known as distillation. In the words of Fairley and German chemical engineer Norbert Kockmann respectively:
{{Blockquote|text=The Latin "distillo," from de-stillo, from stilla, a drop, referred to the dropping of a liquid by human or artificial means, and was applied to any process where a liquid was separated in drops. To distil in the modern sense could only be expressed in a roundabout manner.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fairley |first=T. |date=1907 |title=The Early History of Distillation |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1907.tb02205.x |journal=Journal of the Institute of Brewing |language=en |volume=13 |issue=6 |pages=559–582 |doi=10.1002/j.2050-0416.1907.tb02205.x}}</ref>}}
{{Blockquote|text=Distillation had a broader meaning in ancient and medieval times because nearly all purification and separation operations were subsumed under the term ''distillation'', such as filtration, crystallization, extraction, sublimation, or mechanical pressing of oil.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kockmann |first=Norbert |url=https://www.academia.edu/43754849 |title=Distillation: Fundamentals and Principles |publisher=Academic Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-12-386547-2 |editor-last=Andrzej |editor-first=Górak |pages=1–43 |language=en |chapter=History of Distillation |doi=10.1016/B978-0-12-386547-2.00001-6 |editor-last2=Sorensen |editor-first2=Eva}}</ref>}}According to Dutch chemical historian [[Robert Jacobus Forbes|Robert J. Forbes]], the word ''distillare'' (to drip off) when used by the Romans, e.g. [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] and [[Pliny the Elder]], was "never used in our sense".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Forbes |first=R. J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XeqWOkKYn28C |title=A Short History of the Art of Distillation: From the Beginnings Up to the Death of Cellier Blumenthal |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|BRILL]] |year=1948 |isbn=978-90-04-00617-1 |pages=15 |orig-date=Reprinted 1970}}</ref>

==== Aristotle ====
[[Aristotle]] knew that water condensing from evaporating seawater is fresh:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Aristotle. |url=https://archive.org/details/aristotle0000hdpl/page/n7/mode/2up |title=Meteorologica |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1952 |pages=2.3, 358b |language=Ancient Greek, English |translator-last=Lee |translator-first=H. D. P. |orig-date=c. 340 BC}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|text=I have proved by experiment that salt water evaporated forms fresh, and the vapour does not, when it condenses, condense into sea water again.}}
Letting seawater evaporate and condense into freshwater cannot be called "distillation" for distillation involves boiling, but the experiment may have been an important step towards distillation.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Forbes |first=R. J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XeqWOkKYn28C |title=A Short History of the Art of Distillation: From the Beginnings Up to the Death of Cellier Blumenthal |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|BRILL]] |year=1948 |isbn=978-90-04-00617-1 |pages=14 |orig-date=Reprinted 1970}}</ref>

==== Alexandrian chemists ====
{{See also|Desalination#History|Distilled water#History}}
[[File:Zosimos distillation equipment.jpg|thumb|Distillation equipment used by the 3rd century alchemist [[Zosimos of Panopolis]],<ref>{{cite book|page=203|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=earQAAAAMAAJ|title=The Volatile Oils|author1=Gildemeister, E. |author2=Hoffman, Fr. |author3=translated by Edward Kremers |volume=1|location=New York|publisher=Wiley|year=1913}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780618221233/page/88 88]|title=The History of Science and Technology|author1=Bryan H. Bunch|author2=Alexander Hellemans|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|year=2004|isbn=978-0-618-22123-3|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780618221233/page/88}}</ref> from the [[Byzantine Greek]] manuscript ''Parisinus graces.''<ref>[[Marcelin Berthelot|Berthelot, Marcelin]] (1887–1888) [https://archive.org/details/collectiondesanc01bert ''Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs'']. 3 vol., Paris, p. 161</ref>]]Early evidence of distillation has been found related to [[Alchemy|alchemists]] working in [[Alexandria, Egypt|Alexandria]] in [[Roman Egypt]] in the 1st century CE.<ref name="Forbes" />{{rp|pp=57,89}}

Distilled water has been in use since at least {{Circa|200 CE}}, when [[Alexander of Aphrodisias]] described the process.<ref name="Taylor">{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=F. |year=1945 |title=The evolution of the still |journal=Annals of Science |volume=5 |issue=3 |page=185 |doi=10.1080/00033794500201451}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Berthelot |first=M. P. E. M. |date=1893 |title=The Discovery of Alcohol and Distillation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IisDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA85 |url-status=live |journal=The Popular Science Monthly |volume=XLIII |pages=85–94 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171129151553/https://books.google.com/books?id=IisDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA85 |archive-date=29 November 2017 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> Work on distilling other liquids continued in early [[Byzantine Egypt]] under [[Zosimus of Panopolis]] in the 3rd century.